Fox News Touts 'Real' News and Opinion in Marketing Push

Fox News is readying a new ad campaign with the tagline, "Real News. Real Honest Opinion."

The cable news behemoth will release a teaser for the campaign on Monday on its own properties, with additional creative planned to be released next week.

By featuring its prominent hosts like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson along with journalists Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum, Fox News is looking to reinforce its dominance as the most-watched cable channel.

It's also the chance for Jack Abernethy, co-president of the channel and a Fox News veteran, and his revamped leadership team, which includes programming chief Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace, president of news, to put a fresh stamp on Fox News. Scott and Wallace were promoted last May following the departure of Bill Shine, who had been co-president with Abernethy, during a period of turmoil at the network that also saw chairman Roger Ailes and top host Bill O'Reilly exit after the revelation of sexual harassment allegations.

Since then, much of Fox's lineup has changed, with Laura Ingraham tapped to anchor the 10 p.m. hour and Carlson occupying O'Reilly's old 8 p.m. slot. Two new shows have also joined the daytime lineup, one hosted by Harris Faulkner and another by Dana Perino. In early and late hours, "Fox & Friends First" has expanded to 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. while "Fox News at Night With Shannon Bream" now occupies the 11 p.m. hour.

In the campaign, Fox News highlights both the journalistic side and opinion side of the business.

"Fox is the one place where dissent is allowed," Tucker Carlson says in one of the spots.

Martha Maccallum says, "We are going to ask the tough questions because there is a lot of conventional wisdom out there that needs to be challenged."

The creative was done in-house. Fox News worked with Big Chief on the production.

Fox News is the latest news organization to debut a marketing campaign in recent months.

CNN began its "Facts First" campaign in October, pushing back against President Donald Trump and others who call it a purveyor of "fake news." One of its ads shows an apple as music plays. "This is an apple," says a narrator. "Some people might try to tell you that it's a banana. They might scream 'Banana. Banana. Banana.' over and over and over again. They might put 'banana' in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it's not. This is an apple."

Fox News was once again the most-watched cable network in 2017, averaging 2.4 million total viewers in prime time and 486,000 in the 25-54 demo advertisers buy cable news against. It easily topped MSNBC, which averaged 1.6 million viewers and CNN with 1.1 million. Both averaged 371,000 in the news demo.

Jeanine Poggi covers the TV industry and how broadcast and cable networks and distributors are adopting to the changes in the world of TV advertising. She joined Ad Age in 2012, following six years covering the retail and media industries and other financial sectors for Women's Wear Daily, Forbes and TheStreet.